Wien Hotels & Infos

Imperial Burial Vault (Imperial Crypt)

The Imperial Crypt is located beneath the Capuchin Church and is intended for members of Austria’s former Habsburg dynasty, who have been laid to rest in the crypt since 1633.

149 Habsburgs, including 12 emperors as well as 19 empresses and queens, have their final resting place here. The magnificent double sarcophagus of Maria Theresia and her husband, Emperor Franz I. Stephan von Lothringen, is a work by Balthasar Ferdinand Moll.

In strong contrast to this is the plain sarcophagus of her son Joseph II. The last emperor to be buried here was Franz Joseph I. (1916). The sarcophaguses of Empress Elisabeth and Crown Prince Rudolf are situated in the crypt, which is looked after by Capuchin monks. The hearts of the Habsburgs were buried in the Heart Crypt of the Church of the Augustinian Friars from 1654 to 1878.

Burials take place in the Imperial Crypt to this day: the last Austrian empress, Zita, was buried here in 1989. And on 16 July 2011, her eldest son, the former Crown Prince and European politician, Otto Habsburg, was laid to rest here alongside his wife, Regina.